On the 20th of January the trial against Wilders, and western civilization, will begin. It is quite likely that Wilders will go to jail for speaking the truth. Criminalizing free speech. If Wilders can be sent to jail for "hate speech", I can be sent to jail. If I can be sent to jail, you can be sent to jail.

This is not about Wilders. It is about our very way of life, our civilization and our unalienable rights. It is ironic to me that his trial begins on the first anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, an opponent of American rule of law. Obama was the first President to co-sponsor a UN resolution criminalizing free speech. And while the media failed, yet again, to cover this historic development, it is, in a word, cataclysmic.

International law criminalizing free speech. Did you ever think such a thing possible?

Andrew Bostom wrote that "Wilders called that date 'a crucial day in defending our freedom. I’m prosecuted because of my political convictions. Our freedom is at stake. If a politician is not allowed to criticize an ideology, than that’s it: the end of our freedom. But I’m not afraid. I will not be convicted'. But that was before the 13th of January. 'The ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ shows a peculiar and unrelenting zeal to prosecute Wilders, no matter what; and to get him convicted, no matter what, preferably before the next elections. In this process the rule of law and rooted traditions of freedom that started with Spinoza’s Ethics 350 years ago, are shrugged off, easily. Yet, once fallen, the new tide will wash them away, forever.'"

Any
one who still claims that the trial against Geert Wilders MP, leader of the
Party for Freedom (9 seats in Parliament and 27 in the polls), which starts on
the 20th of January, is not a political process: get a grip. Accused by the
Dutch ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ exactly a year ago for insulting Islam, comparing
the Koran to Mein Kampf and delivering hate speeches, the coming trial against
Wilders suddenly got a Kafkaesque and potentially murderous twist. Finally,
seven days before his first day in Court, all fangs were out and faces off.

“It is irrelevant whether Wilder’s witnesses might prove Wilders’
observations to be correct”, the ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ stated, “what’s relevant
is that his observations are illegal”. Unexpected and breaching court procedures
the detailed indictment of 21 pages, which Wilders received on the 4th of
December and sums up in verbatim all of his Islam and Koran critique in
interviews and Fitna, was amended with new accusations of racism against muslims
and Moroccans. On top of this, Paul Vellerman, the public prosecutor of the
Amsterdam Court decided that the Wilders trial had to be regarded as “an
ordinary trial open for public and with a normal procedure, which doesn’t
deserve the Department of Justice’s highly secured bunker. His is a normal case
and we’ll treat it as such”.

It’s sad to note that Mohammed Bouyeri, the
murderer of Theo van Gogh, and Volkert van der Gaag, the assassin of Pim
Fortuyn, were tried in this specially designed bunker, but that Wilders has to
rely on his personal bodyguards and full metal jacket to ward of terrorists. No
safe room for him, which recently secured Kurt Westergaard and his
granddaughter, but for months on end the vulnerability of a sitting duck.

The demonized Fortuyn

To a connoisseur of the
classic art of Dutch political murder, revived in 2002 with the assassination of
the deliberatedly unprotected and demonized Pim Fortuyn, this twist of fate
comes, however, as no surprise. The ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ had to do something.
Presented with much aplomb in January, already on the 10th of March it turned
out that the case against Wilders had one crucial weak spot: it might not hold
in Court. For in a comparable case the Dutch High Court acquitted a Dutchman of
his earlier conviction of ‘Group-insult’ of Muslims. He had been sentenced to
jail for hanging a poster in front of his window that stated: “Stop the
cancerous growth named Islam”. The High Court ruled that “if one insults a
religion, one doesn’t automatically insult its believers”.

Gerard Spong,
one of the lawyers who lodged complaints against Wilders, was quick to stress,
however, that the case against an MP was far more complex than a poster:
“Wilders is certainly not off the hook”. But to most professors in Law the High
Court ruling proved that Wilders would win with his hands down. Ybo Buruma, a
highly influential professor in Criminal Law at Nijmegen University concluded on
the 11th of January 2010 that “the prosecution of Geert Wilders is a very nice
exercise, but is utterly pointless for it will not lead to a conviction”.

Traditionally with such a High Court ruling and severe scholarly
critique the ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ wouldn’t fail to reconsider and dismiss
charges. But already a year ago the Wall Street Journal had immediately
grasped that “Muslim-immigration [was] eroding traditional Dutch liberties”,
forcing Dutch Law into a radically new course of censorship. Observing that
Wilders’ critique of Islam outraged muslims around the globe, the Journal
chided: “If freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of
controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection”.

The Wall
Street Journal must have been either clairvoyant or hysterically well
informed: Paul Vellerman, Amsterdam’s Court public prosecutor, and Birgit van
Roessel, the Court’s second public prosecutor, who’re both heading the trial
against Wilders, also both are working for the National Expertise Centre
Discrimination. This Centre is the leading organization of the ‘Openbaar
Ministerie’ to track down “crimes of expression and speech”. The Centre was
responsible for lodging complaints against cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.

The un-dutch Wilders

And Paul Vellerman, now in his role
as public prosecutor, was the one who called for Nekschot’s violent
apprehension. Vellerman also dismissed charges against Gretta Duisenberg, widow
of Wim Duisenberg, first treasurer of the EU, and staunch defender of Hamas.
And, tellingly, he also dismissed charges against the orthodox El Tawheed
mosque, which the Dutch Secret Service suspects of breeding terrorists. Mohammed
Bouyeri was one of El Tawheed’s regular attendants. Hence, Vellerman and
Roessel not only religiously persisted in their original indictment, but helped
by Fokko Oldenhuis, Groningen University professor Religion and Law, planned to
come up with new ones. According to Oldenhuis on the 17th of December in
Elsevier, “the statements of Wilders are un-Dutch, they don’t belong
to our Christian-Judaic culture”; “He discriminates Moroccans because of their
race and causes hate against them”; “His desire to ban the Koran brings fear and
terror into peoples homes”; “The laws against hate crimes were made in 1934, to
protect the Jews in a reaction to what was happening in Germany. That is
telling. Prudently, parallels can be made –these laws had a clear cut political
context”.

The press was barred admittance

On
the morning of the 13th of January, Bram Moszkowicz, an € 1000,-- per hour
lawyer and host of his own television show, was still unaware of the disaster
that was bound to happen. Full of confidence he and Geert Wilders went to the
Amsterdam Court for a so called preliminary procedural session. As Wilders
lawyer and helped by experts like Buruma he had sound arguments to ask for
acquittal on most accusations of the 21 pages indictment. Perhaps even, all
would stop that day. The High Court ruling of March was consistent enough.

Also Wilders must have been high spirited. A week before he had given
an interview to the Elsevier that was due to be published that
afternoon. He had stated “to be completely confident that he would win this
political trial and walk out as a free man.” In fact, for the first time Wilders
spoke of his strategy after his victory in the coming national elections: “Pia
Kjaersgaard’s Danish model is highly appealing. On the other hand, we’ll be the
biggest party and ought to form the new Cabinet”. Expressed like that Geert
Wilders claimed the position of prime-minister of the next Cabinet.

Still, they must have smelled something fishy when arriving at the
Amsterdam Court. Completely unexpected and unprecedented the press was barred
admittance and denied coverage of the proceedings. Thomas Bruning, secretary of
the Dutch Society of Journalists spoke of a “serious incident, hindering the
freedom of the press, and lessening the public function of a court of law.” The
Amsterdam Court responded by stating “we’re free to deny admittance to anyone if
we deem it fit”.

Because of this the press could not report the effect
which the new accusations of racism and hate crimes against Moroccans must have
caused. Also, the court shrugged off the arguments of Moszkowicz for acquittal
and his claim that Wilders, because of his public function as a MP and his
constitutional right of freedom of speech, ought not to be prosecuted at all.
Far from it, the Amsterdam Court decided that the High Court’s ruling of the
10th of March had addressed a profoundly different case and that Wilders would
face all charges, including the new ones.

The lawyer Gerard Spong, who’s
in constant media competition with Moszkowicz, reacted with relief but also some
concern. Getting someone convicted for criticizing Islam and comparing Islam and
the Koran with Nazism would have been virtually impossible. “But with these new
charges things look up,” he remarked, “Wilders’ cry: “I have enough of Islam, no
more muslim imigrants!” hands me something that will hold even before the
European High Court. Because muslim immigrants and in another paragraph,
Moroccans, those are a specific group of people. That is discrimination, racism
and hatespeech. Wilders won’t get away with it. Because that is what he said.”
Nevertheless, even to Spong the position of Vellerman was a cause of concern:
“to have him as public prosecutor might not be handy. In the public’s eye he’s
ostensibly biased”.

UPDATE: What's "free' Dutch media concerned with? Who is funding Wilders defense. That's their take. These asshats aid and abet their executioners to a degree that the enemy could never have imagined. Check out the article -- I am quoted as well.

Comments

January 20th Wilders Trial: All Could be Lost

On the 20th of January the trial against Wilders, and western civilization, will begin. It is quite likely that Wilders will go to jail for speaking the truth. Criminalizing free speech. If Wilders can be sent to jail for "hate speech", I can be sent to jail. If I can be sent to jail, you can be sent to jail.

This is not about Wilders. It is about our very way of life, our civilization and our unalienable rights. It is ironic to me that his trial begins on the first anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, an opponent of American rule of law. Obama was the first President to co-sponsor a UN resolution criminalizing free speech. And while the media failed, yet again, to cover this historic development, it is, in a word, cataclysmic.

International law criminalizing free speech. Did you ever think such a thing possible?

Andrew Bostom wrote that "Wilders called that date 'a crucial day in defending our freedom. I’m prosecuted because of my political convictions. Our freedom is at stake. If a politician is not allowed to criticize an ideology, than that’s it: the end of our freedom. But I’m not afraid. I will not be convicted'. But that was before the 13th of January. 'The ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ shows a peculiar and unrelenting zeal to prosecute Wilders, no matter what; and to get him convicted, no matter what, preferably before the next elections. In this process the rule of law and rooted traditions of freedom that started with Spinoza’s Ethics 350 years ago, are shrugged off, easily. Yet, once fallen, the new tide will wash them away, forever.'"

Any
one who still claims that the trial against Geert Wilders MP, leader of the
Party for Freedom (9 seats in Parliament and 27 in the polls), which starts on
the 20th of January, is not a political process: get a grip. Accused by the
Dutch ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ exactly a year ago for insulting Islam, comparing
the Koran to Mein Kampf and delivering hate speeches, the coming trial against
Wilders suddenly got a Kafkaesque and potentially murderous twist. Finally,
seven days before his first day in Court, all fangs were out and faces off.

“It is irrelevant whether Wilder’s witnesses might prove Wilders’
observations to be correct”, the ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ stated, “what’s relevant
is that his observations are illegal”. Unexpected and breaching court procedures
the detailed indictment of 21 pages, which Wilders received on the 4th of
December and sums up in verbatim all of his Islam and Koran critique in
interviews and Fitna, was amended with new accusations of racism against muslims
and Moroccans. On top of this, Paul Vellerman, the public prosecutor of the
Amsterdam Court decided that the Wilders trial had to be regarded as “an
ordinary trial open for public and with a normal procedure, which doesn’t
deserve the Department of Justice’s highly secured bunker. His is a normal case
and we’ll treat it as such”.

It’s sad to note that Mohammed Bouyeri, the
murderer of Theo van Gogh, and Volkert van der Gaag, the assassin of Pim
Fortuyn, were tried in this specially designed bunker, but that Wilders has to
rely on his personal bodyguards and full metal jacket to ward of terrorists. No
safe room for him, which recently secured Kurt Westergaard and his
granddaughter, but for months on end the vulnerability of a sitting duck.

The demonized Fortuyn

To a connoisseur of the
classic art of Dutch political murder, revived in 2002 with the assassination of
the deliberatedly unprotected and demonized Pim Fortuyn, this twist of fate
comes, however, as no surprise. The ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ had to do something.
Presented with much aplomb in January, already on the 10th of March it turned
out that the case against Wilders had one crucial weak spot: it might not hold
in Court. For in a comparable case the Dutch High Court acquitted a Dutchman of
his earlier conviction of ‘Group-insult’ of Muslims. He had been sentenced to
jail for hanging a poster in front of his window that stated: “Stop the
cancerous growth named Islam”. The High Court ruled that “if one insults a
religion, one doesn’t automatically insult its believers”.

Gerard Spong,
one of the lawyers who lodged complaints against Wilders, was quick to stress,
however, that the case against an MP was far more complex than a poster:
“Wilders is certainly not off the hook”. But to most professors in Law the High
Court ruling proved that Wilders would win with his hands down. Ybo Buruma, a
highly influential professor in Criminal Law at Nijmegen University concluded on
the 11th of January 2010 that “the prosecution of Geert Wilders is a very nice
exercise, but is utterly pointless for it will not lead to a conviction”.

Traditionally with such a High Court ruling and severe scholarly
critique the ‘Openbaar Ministerie’ wouldn’t fail to reconsider and dismiss
charges. But already a year ago the Wall Street Journal had immediately
grasped that “Muslim-immigration [was] eroding traditional Dutch liberties”,
forcing Dutch Law into a radically new course of censorship. Observing that
Wilders’ critique of Islam outraged muslims around the globe, the Journal
chided: “If freedom of speech means anything, it means the freedom of
controversial speech. Consensus views need no protection”.

The Wall
Street Journal must have been either clairvoyant or hysterically well
informed: Paul Vellerman, Amsterdam’s Court public prosecutor, and Birgit van
Roessel, the Court’s second public prosecutor, who’re both heading the trial
against Wilders, also both are working for the National Expertise Centre
Discrimination. This Centre is the leading organization of the ‘Openbaar
Ministerie’ to track down “crimes of expression and speech”. The Centre was
responsible for lodging complaints against cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.

The un-dutch Wilders

And Paul Vellerman, now in his role
as public prosecutor, was the one who called for Nekschot’s violent
apprehension. Vellerman also dismissed charges against Gretta Duisenberg, widow
of Wim Duisenberg, first treasurer of the EU, and staunch defender of Hamas.
And, tellingly, he also dismissed charges against the orthodox El Tawheed
mosque, which the Dutch Secret Service suspects of breeding terrorists. Mohammed
Bouyeri was one of El Tawheed’s regular attendants. Hence, Vellerman and
Roessel not only religiously persisted in their original indictment, but helped
by Fokko Oldenhuis, Groningen University professor Religion and Law, planned to
come up with new ones. According to Oldenhuis on the 17th of December in
Elsevier, “the statements of Wilders are un-Dutch, they don’t belong
to our Christian-Judaic culture”; “He discriminates Moroccans because of their
race and causes hate against them”; “His desire to ban the Koran brings fear and
terror into peoples homes”; “The laws against hate crimes were made in 1934, to
protect the Jews in a reaction to what was happening in Germany. That is
telling. Prudently, parallels can be made –these laws had a clear cut political
context”.

The press was barred admittance

On
the morning of the 13th of January, Bram Moszkowicz, an € 1000,-- per hour
lawyer and host of his own television show, was still unaware of the disaster
that was bound to happen. Full of confidence he and Geert Wilders went to the
Amsterdam Court for a so called preliminary procedural session. As Wilders
lawyer and helped by experts like Buruma he had sound arguments to ask for
acquittal on most accusations of the 21 pages indictment. Perhaps even, all
would stop that day. The High Court ruling of March was consistent enough.

Also Wilders must have been high spirited. A week before he had given
an interview to the Elsevier that was due to be published that
afternoon. He had stated “to be completely confident that he would win this
political trial and walk out as a free man.” In fact, for the first time Wilders
spoke of his strategy after his victory in the coming national elections: “Pia
Kjaersgaard’s Danish model is highly appealing. On the other hand, we’ll be the
biggest party and ought to form the new Cabinet”. Expressed like that Geert
Wilders claimed the position of prime-minister of the next Cabinet.

Still, they must have smelled something fishy when arriving at the
Amsterdam Court. Completely unexpected and unprecedented the press was barred
admittance and denied coverage of the proceedings. Thomas Bruning, secretary of
the Dutch Society of Journalists spoke of a “serious incident, hindering the
freedom of the press, and lessening the public function of a court of law.” The
Amsterdam Court responded by stating “we’re free to deny admittance to anyone if
we deem it fit”.

Because of this the press could not report the effect
which the new accusations of racism and hate crimes against Moroccans must have
caused. Also, the court shrugged off the arguments of Moszkowicz for acquittal
and his claim that Wilders, because of his public function as a MP and his
constitutional right of freedom of speech, ought not to be prosecuted at all.
Far from it, the Amsterdam Court decided that the High Court’s ruling of the
10th of March had addressed a profoundly different case and that Wilders would
face all charges, including the new ones.

The lawyer Gerard Spong, who’s
in constant media competition with Moszkowicz, reacted with relief but also some
concern. Getting someone convicted for criticizing Islam and comparing Islam and
the Koran with Nazism would have been virtually impossible. “But with these new
charges things look up,” he remarked, “Wilders’ cry: “I have enough of Islam, no
more muslim imigrants!” hands me something that will hold even before the
European High Court. Because muslim immigrants and in another paragraph,
Moroccans, those are a specific group of people. That is discrimination, racism
and hatespeech. Wilders won’t get away with it. Because that is what he said.”
Nevertheless, even to Spong the position of Vellerman was a cause of concern:
“to have him as public prosecutor might not be handy. In the public’s eye he’s
ostensibly biased”.

UPDATE: What's "free' Dutch media concerned with? Who is funding Wilders defense. That's their take. These asshats aid and abet their executioners to a degree that the enemy could never have imagined. Check out the article -- I am quoted as well.